Tall, dark, and dangerous, Reny Stark is from the wrong side of the tracks. A criminal, a thug, and a brawler, he’s the best at making bad choices, until one such choice landed him in prison for five years. Now Reny is out and has a great big chip on his shoulder. Having lost everything, he has no future. He’s unemployable, and the only place he can afford to live is in a cheap rundown room in the plague pit of New York City called Gangland. At one time he didn’t care what he had to do to stay alive, but now he’s trying to stay clean -- but the gangs won’t let him. Since he’s not a member of any gang, they’ve fingered him as their assassin, and one night he is forced to honor a contract on someone’s life, or die.

Having little choice, he haunts the city streets until he finds his target, and hates him on sight. He’s everything Reny is not. He’s young, ambitious, good looking, and with a great future ahead of him. This man is so clean he squeaks while Reny is covered in the dirt of the ghetto, stuck with a prison record, and no hope of ever getting out. Because his target has had an easy life, Reny expected a soft, prissy guy that wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but instead he looms hard and tough, and refuses to go down.

Ric Ferrand may be young, but he knows all about living a hard life and the tough choices that come with it. Although he’s always had kind of a yen for the wild side of life he’s tried not to let the evil of the city pull him down. But now the streets are fighting back in the person of Reny Stark, the scariest, sexiest, and most complicated ex-con this big city has ever produced -- and this tough guy wants to kill him.

Then something happens that Ric didn’t count on. He slowly gets to know and understand the brute whose next stop is Death Row, and begins to have feelings for him. Taking a big chance, he invites him home where the contract killing gets lost between the sheets making Ric realize some guys are just better when they’re bad.

EXCERPT:Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

As Reny looked into the eyes of the tall blond with the wild, naturally curly hair, more wave than tight curl, he saw an intensity about him he’d never seen before. His black T-shirt was darkened with sweat as it clung to his muscle-packed chest. Black leather pants clung to lean hips. They hugged his richly-muscled thighs, and enhanced every nuance of the swivel and thrust of his hips. Every flex of his tight ass as he moved drew Reny’s hungry eyes from where he stood. Ric didn’t know it, but he had a bad boy look all his own, and it turned Reny on big time. He had to fight that attraction, because Ric wasn’t living a fantasy anymore. Now it was real, and whether he knew it or not, his life was in danger, and he had to somehow stop it.

“All right, so we’re together now, but you can fuck me, beat me, treat me bad, but you’ll never keep me,” Reny said, with a shameless dare. “Just a warning.”

He could almost hear the strong gut-pounding drumbeat that pulsed and throbbed through Ric when he said that. That’s all he needed -- a challenge. All right, so Ric had a Medusa’s thorn in his side. Reny was finding out that he didn’t mind feeding it. Hell, maybe he had one himself because he seemed to get off on tempting Ric with his bad boy antics.

One thing he knew, when these two Medusa’s Thorns came together there was always an explosion between them that he never wanted to end.

“You’re bad, you little bastard,” Ric said with a guttural whisper. “Bad to the bone. You wear danger like any other man wears cologne. It drifts around you, always tempting good guys like me. I remember the first time I saw you, standing there surrounded by the midnight moon, your body a temptation to every law-abiding male out there. You knew what you were doing. You didn’t want to kill me, you wanted to fuck me. Admit it.”

“I knew your type from the beginning,” Reny whispered. “Always wanting to take a walk on the wild side from the comfort of your living room. Well, look around, big guy. This isn’t exactly your living room, is it? We’re right in the middle of danger here. What’s it doing to you?”

“Guess,” Ric whispered as he stood looking at Reny’s dark-haired good looks, and the sense of danger he carried with him. He closed his eyes as he got a whiff of Reny’s hard street smell. His gaze swept over him from top to bottom as he stood in an arrogant, conceited pose. Everything about him was a challenge. A plain message that demanded that Ric pull him close and get lost in the cool, liquid stare he gave him. He knew the effect he was having on Ric by his sly secret smile that hinted at the exciting mysteries of his flesh.

The bastard was playing with him.

Ric had to have him.

He had to get lost in those -- what were they called -- aquamarine eyes? God, what a combination. Dark eyes, dark skin, and aquamarine eyes -- topped off with danger to make it exciting.

“I ought to beat your ass right down into the ground,” Ric said, feeling an ugly, bad boy desire all the way down to his toes.

“Think you can, Mr. Wall Street?”

“I had you pegged from the very beginning. Even in the night club I knew you wanted me. And then when I left and you followed me it was as easy as hooking a fish and dragging him to shore.”

“You sayin’ I’m easy?”

“Take it anyway you want. All I’m sayin’ is the chase is over, bad boy. You’re mine, and you know it.”